Fear
by Ronja Tark
Summary: AU Future Fic. George has to reap someone she once knew. Smallish MasonGeorge hardly noticeable. Has two or three swear words.


**I do not owe Dead Like Me and make no profit whatsoever from this story. **

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_I remember the moment I realized the downside of being undead. I was at Happy Time doing my job, not, as usual when Delores came by announcing her plans for a birthday party for Sandy-Something-Or-Another. I wasn't really listening but had a perfect "Gosh what this is interesting" look on my face, a look I mastered years ago, when I picked up "How the time flies," out of her dialog. For a moment my inside seemed to freeze and my outside __showed signs of this inner glacier of mine. I managed to get away from Delores concerned inquiries and stumbled in to the ladies where I spent the next half-hour hyperventilating. The thought had hit me, almost as hard as the toilet seat did, I don't age. Surely people would start to get suspicious if I still work here ten years from now, looking eighteen. Make-up can do wonders but I doubt even that would help. I got back to work that day pretending that nothing was wrong but I always had that thought in the back of my mind. Five years later I had to move on, not to THE place unfortunately, but on never the less. _

I step out of the lift and come to a stop. Mason is right behind me, literally, and doesn't have the time to move aside and crash into me. I glare at him and then get back at staring at the last place I wanted to be; Happy Time Temp Agency. In shock I look around. This place hasn't changed at all!

Slowly I walk through the sitting/waiting area towards the cubicles. I stop again just before I reach the hallway. This time Mason is prepared and stops beside me.

"How does it feel to be back here?" he wonders.

I shook my head not knowing what to say. It had been almost twenty years since I quit, with the excuse that I was going back to college full time and couldn't continue to work.

_I did go back to college but not full time. _

"Whatever," I finally snap. "Lets just do the reaps."

_Yeah, I'm not back here for a social call.__ I'm here because of a yellow little post-it, the bane of my existence._

I look at the one I have in my hand, although I already had it memorized. _D. Herbig, Happy Time Temp Agency, ETD: 4:47 PM._

Fuck. I don't really know what I feel about Delores. It's been a long time since I talked and saw her, at my going away party actually. It wasn't like I could've invited her to my graduation that would have ruined the whole point of me quitting. But I guess that I can admit, but I deny it if anyone asks, that she was, sorta, my friend. And now I have to reap her. Well, it sucks.

_But I haven't seen her in like twenty years she is just another soul that needs to be popped._

"Well, I'm off to find my guy," Mason says and whistling walks away.

_Oh yeah, he isn't here for moral support._

I sigh and walk forward. I just know that she will have the same cubical as before and as I walk I find myself fighting memories. I stop for a second at my old one it is now someone else's and that someone has the desk filled with pictures and junk. I snort and walk forward.

There she is.

_She looks old_.

Sitting at her desk, talking to her phone and has a big smile on her face. I turn my head sideways and look at her. She has gray hair, in the same hairstyle, and she has wrinkles all over her face. I don't know what to do.

Luckily that decision isn't mine. Delores hangs up the phone and looks up, right at me.

"Oh, hello," she smiles. "Can I help you? Here at Happy Time we happily help anyone in need of service." She stops speaking and narrows her eyes. "Do I know you? You look familiar."

That shakes me out of my stupor. I walk forward and hold out my hand for her to shake.

"I'm Mil… Maddie," I say. She stands up and happily shakes hands, it's easy to take her soul. "No, I don't need help. I'm here with my boyfriend," I see Mason running his hand over a guy's arm and know he found his too. I point at him and Delores turns.

"Ah, I see."

_I can't handle this._

"Excuse me," I say and turn. Quickly I make my way back to the waiting area. Mason joins me a few minutes later, his hands full of stuff he nicked.

And now we wait.

Six minutes later Delores and the guy's souls join us. I saw the whole thing; the guy was walking with a letter opener, a graveling tripped him and Delores was unfortunately, but planned, in the way of the sharp end. Oh, and the guy hit his head on the way to the floor.

"Millie?" Delores wonders. "No, you're not Millie, but I have seen you before."

_Mason, help me out will yah._

No help from him though, he was busy taking his soul into some lights.

"I'm Georgia," I say, "Georgia Lass. I worked here, for a day." I wanted to say that I was Millie, but she wouldn't recognize me, so I didn't.

_I don't know what was worse in the end. Delores going to the lights not knowing who I was, she didn't remember the accident that happened twenty-five years earlier that took my life, or myself knowing that another friend from my life was now gone__. I had already lost Betty, my mother, Roxy, Rube and my sister, in that order. And though I gained a love, Mason, I still fear the time when he will go to the lights just like Daisy and my new fellow Reapers replacing the others will. I fear the time when all connections to my old life and friends are gone. _

**End**.


End file.
